HS OR and Dave Goldsman WOW! Worth waiting for

by Ken Chelst on October 9th, 2013

We offered our one-day program about OR to local area high school math teachers.
We had 40 in the room plus 10 more who were on a waiting list.
Dave Goldsman began with a queuing discussion that engaged the teachers immediately. He recalled being paid to wait on a line for 26 hours to purchase Elvis tickets to be turned over to the local radio station. After much discussion of related teacher experience, Dave moved onto a formal activity involving standard M/M/1 .
He then managed a controlled chaos as we did an experiment with teachers randomly expected to sharpen a pencil. One pencil sharpener demonstrated significant variability. The average was in the 15 second range. He took 45 seconds as he cranked and cranked the sharpener. This chaos is often the highlight of the day.
A\Of course, sprinkled his unique sty;e of humor throughout his presentation.

Dave was tremendous – anyone who has not seen him discuss how to introduce concepts in queuing to novices is missing a terrific demonstration on how to communicate. The implications of what Dave does and how he does it reach far beyond queuing, and the lessons to be learned are profound.

About

Welcome to the official blog of the 2013 Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, MN. Whether you are lucky enough to attend or just wishing you were here, stay informed on all of the exciting events taking place. A big thank you to our guest bloggers.

Attendee Tweets

About

The strength of our Annual Meeting is its diversity, bringing together experts from industry, academia, and government. The meeting covers topics ranging from business analytics to workforce management. INFORMS Minneapolis offers a vibrant, progressive environment for us to come together, look forward, and share and discuss scientific advances.